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The Heller Poll results: Tines up, America!

OK, so I don’t get this. If you watch TV commercials, TV programs or movies, at least half the characters – I swear – eat with tines turned down, or what I would call overhand eating. And yet 74 percent of the 164 people who took part in this week’s poll said underhand eating – tines up forking – is the way to go.

So what’s going on here? Do TV and movie characters do it because writers are pretentious fops or because it somehow looks better on camera? Is it my imagination they’re doing this more often? And as for us “real folk,” is tines-up forking simply a Michigan thing and we’re out of step with the rest of the world? And by the way, which method is “correct”?

For answers, I googled and found this explanation from thekitchn.com: “There are two basic methods for eating with a knife and fork. The “American” involves having your fork in your left and your knife in your right when cutting your food, then putting the knife down and switching your fork to your right hand to eat, tines facing upwards. (If you’re right-handed, that is.) With the “European” method, the fork remains in the left hand and the knife helps coax your food onto your fork. The tines remain facing downwards. Lately I’ve noticed that more Americans are adopting the European style, perhaps to appear more well-traveled and sophisticated? Or maybe it’s because the European method is simpler and more efficient? According to some etiquette books, the American style came to the States with the British colonists and took hold here, while the European method is a somewhat more recent change.”

So there you have it. For my tastes, tines up is still the only way to go. It’s only logical – I mean, look at the fork. It has that curve for a reason, right? Of course it does. And the reason is because forks aren’t just for stabbing, they’re just as often for scooping.

I don’t want to seem behind the times, though. Maybe I’ll be a trendsetter, ignore both methods and just start eating with my hands.

Yeah, but… Andrew, when you cut your meat, your fork is in your left hand, right? With the times down, while cutting, right?

Then, you switch your fork to the right hand, with the tines up, and you eat. Am I wrong? (This is what I do. I guess I assumed most Americans eat this way.)

Tines down while cutting just works better. The tines point down into the meat. Then, tines up works better for eating. Now, you make me realize it may be a combination of the effete European style with the red-blooded American style. Princess Di meets Marshall Matt Dillon. (Not a bad combination, actually, but Miss Kitty would have been furious.)

I have eaten “tines down” since spending time in Spain in 1962 and ’63. Just seemed to be a simpler way to eat. And I have even had servers in oriental restaurants mention I must have been raised in an oriental home the way I use chopsticks. Nope, raised right here in the Middle of the Mitten by two transplanted Buckeyes. In the end–as long as you are not trying to eat off of my plate, who cares?

About The Author

Andrew Heller has been an enduringly popular newspaper columnist in Michigan for a long, long, long time. He wrote his first column for the Escanaba Daily Press way back in 1979. It was about his … Continue Reading

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